Although if I were to translate Plato or Aristotle in as bold a manner as our poets have translated the Greek plays, then, I suppose, I should not deserve well at the hands of my fellow-countrymen, for having brought those divine geniuses within their reach. However, that is not what I have hitherto done, though I do not consider myself interdicted from doing so. Some particular passages, if I think it desirable, I shall translate, especially from those authors whom I have just named, when there is an opportunity of doing so with propriety; just as Ennius often translates passages from Homer, and Afranius from Menander. Nor will I, like Lucilius, make any objection to everybody reading my writings. I should be glad to have that Persius for one of my readers; and still more to have Scipio and Rutilius;men whose criticism he professed to fear, saying that he wrote for the people of Tarentum, and Consentia, and Sicily. That was all very witty of him, and in his usual style; but still, people at that time were not so learned as to give him cause to labour much before he could encounter their judgment, and his writings are of a lightish character, showing indeed, a high degree of good breeding, but only a moderate quantity of learning. But whom can I fear to have read my works when I ventured to address a book to you, who are not inferior to the Greeks themselves in philosophical knowledge? Although I have this excuse for what I am doing, that I have been challenged by you, in that to me most acceptable book which you sent me "On Virtue."
But I imagine that some people have become accustomed to feel a repugnance to Latin writing because they have fallen in with some unpolished and inelegant treatises translated from bad Greek into worse Latin. And with those men I agree, provided they will not think it worth while to read the Greek books written on the same subject. But who would object to read works on important subjects expressed in well-selected diction, with dignity and elegance; unless, indeed, he wishes to be taken absolutely for a Greek, as Albucius was saluted at Athens by Scævola, when he was prætor? And this topic has been handled by that same Lucilius with great elegance and abundant wit; where he represents Scævola as saying—
You have preferr'd, Albucius, to be call'd
A Greek much rather than a Roman citizen
Or Sabine, countryman of Pontius,
Tritannius, and the brave centurions
And standard-bearers of immortal fame.
So now at Athens, I, the prætor, thus
Salute you as you wish, whene'er I see you,
With Greek address, ὦ χαῖρε noble Titus,
Ye lictors, and attendants χαίρετε.
ὦ χαῖρε noble Titus. From this day
The great Albucius was my enemy.
But surely Scævola was right. However, I can never sufficiently express my wonder whence this arrogant disdain of everything national arose among us. This is not exactly the place for lecturing on the subject; but my own feelings are, and I have constantly urged them, that the Latin language is not only not deficient, so as to deserve to be generallydisparaged; but that it is even more copious than the Greek. For when have either we ourselves, or when has any good orator or noble poet, at least after there was any one for him to imitate, found himself at a loss for any richness or ornament of diction with which to set off his sentiments?